BactImAS: a platform for processing and analysis of bacterial time-lapse microscopy movies

Background

The software available to date for analyzing image sequences from time-lapse microscopy works only for certain bacteria and under limited conditions. These programs, mostly MATLAB-based, fail for microbes with irregular shape, indistinct cell division sites, or that grow in closely packed microcolonies. Unfortunately, many organisms of interest have these characteristics, and analyzing their image sequences has been limited to time consuming manual processing.

Results

Here we describe BactImAS – a modular, multi-platform, open-source, Java-based software delivered both as a standalone program and as a plugin for Icy. The software is designed for extracting and visualizing quantitative data from bacterial time-lapse movies. BactImAS uses a semi-automated approach where the user defines initial cells, identifies cell division events, and, if necessary, manually corrects cell segmentation with the help of user-friendly GUI and incorporated ImageJ application. The program segments and tracks cells using a newly-developed algorithm designed for movies with difficult-to-segment cells that exhibit small frame-to-frame differences. Measurements are extracted from images in a configurable, automated fashion and an SQLite database is used to store, retrieve, and exchange all acquired data. Finally, the BactImAS can generate configurable lineage tree visualizations and export data as CSV files. We tested BactImAS on time-lapse movies of Mycobacterium smegmatis and achieved at least 10-fold reduction of processing time compared to manual analysis. We illustrate the power of the visualization tool by showing heterogeneity of both icl expression and cell growth atop of a lineage tree.

Conclusions

The presented software simplifies quantitative analysis of time-lapse movies overall and is currently the only available software for the analysis of mycobacteria-like cells. It will be of interest to the community of both end-users and developers of time-lapse microscopy software.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2105-15-251) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

FIM Imaging and FIMtrack: Two New Tools Allowing High-throughput and Cost Effective Locomotion Analysis

The analysis of neuronal network function requires a reliable measurement of behavioral traits. Since the behavior of freely moving animals is variable to a certain degree, many animals have to be analyzed, to obtain statistically significant data. This in turn requires a computer assisted automated quantification of locomotion patterns. To obtain high contrast images of almost translucent and small moving objects, a novel imaging technique based on frustrated total internal reflection called FIM was developed. In this setup, animals are only illuminated with infrared light at the very specific position of contact with the underlying crawling surface. This methodology results in very high contrast images. Subsequently, these high contrast images are processed using established contour tracking algorithms. Based on this, we developed the FIMTrack software, which serves to extract a number of features needed to quantitatively describe a large variety of locomotion characteristics. During the development of this software package, we focused our efforts on an open source architecture allowing the easy addition of further modules. The program operates platform independent and is accompanied by an intuitive GUI guiding the user through data analysis. All locomotion parameter values are given in form of csv files allowing further data analyses. In addition, a Results Viewer integrated into the tracking software provides the opportunity to interactively review and adjust the output, as might be needed during stimulus integration. The power of FIM and FIMTrack is demonstrated by studying the locomotion of Drosophila larvae.     

Fluorescence Time-lapse Imaging of the Complete S. venezuelae Life Cycle Using a Microfluidic Device

Live-cell imaging of biological processes at the single cell level has been instrumental to our current understanding of the subcellular organization of bacterial cells. However, the application of time-lapse microscopy to study the cell biological processes underpinning development in the sporulating filamentous bacteria Streptomyces has been hampered by technical difficulties. Here we present a protocol to overcome these limitations by growing the new model species, Streptomyces venezuelae, in a commercially available microfluidic device which is connected to an inverted fluorescence widefield microscope. Unlike the classical model species, Streptomyces coelicolor, S. venezuelae sporulates in liquid, allowing the application of microfluidic growth chambers to cultivate and microscopically monitor the cellular development and differentiation of S. venezuelae over long time periods. In addition to monitoring morphological changes, the spatio-temporal distribution of fluorescently labeled target proteins can also be visualized by time-lapse microscopy. Moreover, the microfluidic platform offers the experimental flexibility to exchange the culture medium, which is used in the detailed protocol to stimulate sporulation of S. venezuelae in the microfluidic chamber. Images of the entire S. venezuelae life cycle are acquired at specific intervals and processed in the open-source software Fiji to produce movies of the recorded time-series.     

Tracking Cells in GFP-transgenic Zebrafish Using the Photoconvertible PSmOrange System

The rapid development of transparent zebrafish embryos (Danio rerio) in combination with fluorescent labelings of cells and tissues allows visualizing developmental processes as they happen in the living animal. Cells of interest can be labeled by using a tissue specific promoter to drive the expression of a fluorescent protein (FP) for the generation of transgenic lines. Using fluorescent photoconvertible proteins for this purpose additionally allows to precisely follow defined structures within the expression domain. Illuminating the protein in the region of interest, changes its emission spectrum and highlights a particular cell or cell cluster leaving other transgenic cells in their original color. A major limitation is the lack of known promoters for a large number of tissues in the zebrafish. Conversely, gene- and enhancer trap screens have generated enormous transgenic resources discretely labeling literally all embryonic structures mostly with GFP or to a lesser extend red or yellow FPs. An approach to follow defined structures in such transgenic backgrounds would be to additionally introduce a ubiquitous photoconvertible protein, which could be converted in the cell(s) of interest. However, the photoconvertible proteins available involve a green and/or less frequently a red emission state¹ and can therefore often not be used to track cells in the FP-background of existing transgenic lines. To circumvent this problem, we have established the PSmOrange system for the zebrafish^2,3. Simple microinjection of synthetic mRNA encoding a nuclear form of this protein labels all cell nuclei with orange/red fluorescence. Upon targeted photoconversion of the protein, it switches its emission spectrum to far red. The quantum efficiency and stability of the protein makes PSmOrange a superb cell-tracking tool for zebrafish and possibly other teleost species.     

Setting Up a Simple Light Sheet Microscope for In Toto Imaging of C. elegans Development

Fast and low phototoxic imaging techniques are pre-requisite to study the development of organisms in toto. Light sheet based microscopy reduces photo-bleaching and phototoxic effects compared to confocal microscopy, while providing 3D images with subcellular resolution. Here we present the setup of a light sheet based microscope, which is composed of an upright microscope and a small set of opto-mechanical elements for the generation of the light sheet. The protocol describes how to build, align the microscope and characterize the light sheet. In addition, it details how to implement the method for in toto imaging of C. elegans embryos using a simple observation chamber. The method allows the capture of 3D two-colors time-lapse movies over few hours of development. This should ease the tracking of cell shape, cell divisions and tagged proteins over long periods of time.     

Measurement of Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster

Aging is a phenomenon that results in steady physiological deterioration in nearly all organisms in which it has been examined, leading to reduced physical performance and increased risk of disease. Individual aging is manifest at the population level as an increase in age-dependent mortality, which is often measured in the laboratory by observing lifespan in large cohorts of age-matched individuals. Experiments that seek to quantify the extent to which genetic or environmental manipulations impact lifespan in simple model organisms have been remarkably successful for understanding the aspects of aging that are conserved across taxa and for inspiring new strategies for extending lifespan and preventing age-associated disease in mammals.The vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an attractive model organism for studying the mechanisms of aging due to its relatively short lifespan, convenient husbandry, and facile genetics. However, demographic measures of aging, including age-specific survival and mortality, are extraordinarily susceptible to even minor variations in experimental design and environment, and the maintenance of strict laboratory practices for the duration of aging experiments is required. These considerations, together with the need to practice careful control of genetic background, are essential for generating robust measurements. Indeed, there are many notable controversies surrounding inference from longevity experiments in yeast, worms, flies and mice that have been traced to environmental or genetic artifacts^1-4. In this protocol, we describe a set of procedures that have been optimized over many years of measuring longevity in Drosophila using laboratory vials. We also describe the use of the dLife software, which was developed by our laboratory and is available for download (http://sitemaker.umich.edu/pletcherlab/software). dLife accelerates throughput and promotes good practices by incorporating optimal experimental design, simplifying fly handling and data collection, and standardizing data analysis. We will also discuss the many potential pitfalls in the design, collection, and interpretation of lifespan data, and we provide steps to avoid these dangers.     

Real-time Imaging of Myeloid Cells Dynamics in ApcMin/+ Intestinal Tumors by Spinning Disk Confocal Microscopy

Myeloid cells are the most abundant immune cells within tumors and have been shown to promote tumor progression. Modern intravital imaging techniques enable the observation of live cellular behavior inside the organ but can be challenging in some types of cancer due to organ and tumor accessibility such as intestine. Direct observation of intestinal tumors has not been previously reported. A surgical procedure described here allows direct observation of myeloid cell dynamics within the intestinal tumors in live mice by using transgenic fluorescent reporter mice and injectable tracers or antibodies. For this purpose, a four-color, multi-region, micro-lensed spinning disk confocal microscope that allows long-term continuous imaging with rapid image acquisition has been used. Apc^Min/+ mice that develop multiple adenomas in the small intestine are crossed with c-fms-EGFP mice to visualize myeloid cells and with ACTB-ECFP mice to visualize intestinal epithelial cells of the crypts. Procedures for labeling different tumor components, such as blood vessels and neutrophils, and the procedure for positioning the tumor for imaging through the serosal surface are also described. Time-lapse movies compiled from several hours of imaging allow the analysis of myeloid cell behavior in situ in the intestinal microenvironment.     

Using plusTipTracker Software to Measure Microtubule Dynamics in Xenopus laevis Growth Cones

Microtubule (MT) plus-end-tracking proteins (+TIPs) localize to the growing plus-ends of MTs and regulate MT dynamics^1,2. One of the most well-known and widely-utilized +TIPs for analyzing MT dynamics is the End-Binding protein, EB1, which binds all growing MT plus-ends, and thus, is a marker for MT polymerization¹. Many studies of EB1 behavior within growth cones have used time-consuming and biased computer-assisted, hand-tracking methods to analyze individual MTs^1-3. Our approach is to quantify global parameters of MT dynamics using the software package, plusTipTracker⁴, following the acquisition of high-resolution, live images of tagged EB1 in cultured embryonic growth cones⁵. This software is a MATLAB-based, open-source, user-friendly package that combines automated detection, tracking, visualization, and analysis for movies of fluorescently-labeled +TIPs. Here, we present the protocol for using plusTipTracker for the analysis of fluorescently-labeled +TIP comets in cultured Xenopus laevis growth cones. However, this software can also be used to characterize MT dynamics in various cell types^6-8.     

Microscopy of Fission Yeast Sexual Lifecycle

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been an invaluable model system in studying the regulation of the mitotic cell cycle progression, the mechanics of cell division and cell polarity. Furthermore, classical experiments on its sexual reproduction have yielded results pivotal to current understanding of DNA recombination and meiosis. More recent analysis of fission yeast mating has raised interesting questions on extrinsic stimuli response mechanisms, polarized cell growth and cell-cell fusion. To study these topics in detail we have developed a simple protocol for microscopy of the entire sexual lifecycle. The method described here is easily adjusted to study specific mating stages. Briefly, after being grown to exponential phase in a nitrogen-rich medium, cell cultures are shifted to a nitrogen-deprived medium for periods of time suited to the stage of the sexual lifecycle that will be explored. Cells are then mounted on custom, easily built agarose pad chambers for imaging. This approach allows cells to be monitored from the onset of mating to the final formation of spores.     

Ex vivo Live Imaging of Lung Metastasis and Their Microenvironment

Metastasis is a major cause for cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Metastasis is a multistep process and due to its complexity, the exact cellular and molecular processes that govern metastatic dissemination and growth are still elusive. Live imaging allows visualization of the dynamic and spatial interactions of cells and their microenvironment. Solid tumors commonly metastasize to the lungs. However, the anatomical location of the lungs poses a challenge to intravital imaging. This protocol provides a relatively simple and quick method for ex vivo live imaging of the dynamic interactions between tumor cells and their surrounding stroma within lung metastasis. Using this method, the motility of cancer cells as well as interactions between cancer cells and stromal cells in their microenvironment can be visualized in real time for several hours. By using transgenic fluorescent reporter mice, a fluorescent cell line, injectable fluorescently labeled molecules and/or antibodies, multiple components of the lung microenvironment can be visualized, such as blood vessels and immune cells. To image the different cell types, a spinning disk confocal microscope that allows long-term continuous imaging with rapid, four-color image acquisition has been used. Time-lapse movies compiled from images collected over multiple positions and focal planes show interactions between live metastatic and immune cells for at least 4 hr. This technique can be further used to test chemotherapy or targeted therapy. Moreover, this method could be adapted for the study of other lung-related pathologies that may affect the lung microenvironment.     

Ex vivo Culture of Drosophila Pupal Testis and Single Male Germ-line Cysts: Dissection,Imaging, and Pharmacological Treatment

During spermatogenesis in mammals and in Drosophila melanogaster, male germ cells develop in a series of essential developmental processes. This includes differentiation from a stem cell population, mitotic amplification, and meiosis. In addition, post-meiotic germ cells undergo a dramatic morphological reshaping process as well as a global epigenetic reconfiguration of the germ line chromatin—the histone-to-protamine switch.Studying the role of a protein in post-meiotic spermatogenesis using mutagenesis or other genetic tools is often impeded by essential embryonic, pre-meiotic, or meiotic functions of the protein under investigation. The post-meiotic phenotype of a mutant of such a protein could be obscured through an earlier developmental block, or the interpretation of the phenotype could be complicated. The model organism Drosophila melanogaster offers a bypass to this problem: intact testes and even cysts of germ cells dissected from early pupae are able to develop ex vivo in culture medium. Making use of such cultures allows microscopic imaging of living germ cells in testes and of germ-line cysts. Importantly, the cultivated testes and germ cells also become accessible to pharmacological inhibitors, thereby permitting manipulation of enzymatic functions during spermatogenesis, including post-meiotic stages.The protocol presented describes how to dissect and cultivate pupal testes and germ-line cysts. Information on the development of pupal testes and culture conditions are provided alongside microscope imaging data of live testes and germ-line cysts in culture. We also describe a pharmacological assay to study post-meiotic spermatogenesis, exemplified by an assay targeting the histone-to-protamine switch using the histone acetyltransferase inhibitor anacardic acid. In principle, this cultivation method could be adapted to address many other research questions in pre- and post-meiotic spermatogenesis.     

Real-time Imaging of Plant Cell Surface Dynamics with Variable-angle Epifluorescence Microscopy

A plant’s cell surface is its interface for perceiving environmental cues; it responds with cell biological changes such as membrane trafficking and cytoskeletal rearrangement. Real-time and high-resolution image analysis of such intracellular events will increase the understanding of plant cell biology at the molecular level. Variable angle epifluorescence microscopy (VAEM) is an emerging technique that provides high-quality, time-lapse images of fluorescently-labeled proteins on the plant cell surface. In this article, practical procedures are described for VAEM specimen preparation, adjustment of the VAEM optical system, movie capturing and image analysis. As an example of VAEM observation, representative results are presented on the dynamics of PATROL1. This is a protein essential for stomatal movement, thought to be involved in proton pump delivery to plasma membranes in the stomatal complex of Arabidopsis thaliana. VAEM real-time observation of guard cells and subsidiary cells in A. thaliana cotyledons showed that fluorescently-tagged PATROL1 appeared as dot-like structures on plasma membranes for several seconds and then disappeared. Kymograph analysis of VAEM movie data determined the time distribution of the presence (termed ‘residence time’) of the dot-like structures. The use of VAEM is discussed in the context of this example.     

Improved Visualization of Lung Metastases at Single Cell Resolution in Mice by Combined In-situ Perfusion of Lung Tissue and X-Gal Staining of lacZ-Tagged Tumor Cells

Metastasis is the main cause of death in the majority of cancer types and consequently a main focus in cancer research. However, the detection of micrometastases by radiologic imaging and the success in their therapeutic eradication remain limited.While animal models have proven to be invaluable tools for cancer research¹, the monitoring/visualization of micrometastases remains a challenge and inaccurate evaluation of metastatic spread in preclinical studies potentially leads to disappointing results in clinical trials². Consequently, there is great interest in refining the methods to finally allow reproducible and reliable detection of metastases down to the single cell level in normal tissue. The main focus therefore is on techniques, which allow the detection of tumor cells in vivo, like micro-computer tomography (micro-CT), positron emission tomography (PET), bioluminescence or fluorescence imaging^3,4. We are currently optimizing these techniques for in vivo monitoring of primary tumor growth and metastasis in different osteosarcoma models. Some of these techniques can also be used for ex vivo analysis of metastasis beside classical methods like qPCR⁵, FACS⁶ or different types of histological staining. As a benchmark, we have established in the present study the stable transfection or transduction of tumor cells with the lacZ gene encoding the bacterial enzyme β-galactosidase that metabolizes the chromogenic substrate 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-beta-D-galactopyranoside (X-Gal) to an insoluble indigo blue dye⁷ and allows highly sensitive and selective histochemical blue staining of tumor cells in mouse tissue ex vivo down to the single cell level as shown here. This is a low-cost and not equipment-intensive tool, which allows precise validation of metastasis⁸ in studies assessing new anticancer therapies^9-11. A limiting factor of X-gal staining is the low contrast to e.g. blood-related red staining of well vascularized tissues. In lung tissue this problem can be solved by in-situ lung perfusion, a technique that was recently established by Borsig et al.¹² who perfused the lungs of mice under anesthesia to clear them from blood and to fix and embed them in-situ under inflation through the trachea. This method prevents also the collapse of the lung and thereby maintains the morphology of functional lung alveoli, which improves the quality of the tissue for histological analysis. In the present study, we describe a new protocol, which takes advantage of a combination of X-gal staining of lacZ-expressing tumor cells and in-situ perfusion and fixation of lung tissue. This refined protocol allows high-sensitivity detection of single metastatic cells in the lung and enabled us in a recent study to detect "dormant" lung micrometastases in a mouse model¹³, which was originally described to be non-metastatic¹⁴.     

Workflow for High-content,Individual Cell Quantification of Fluorescent Markers from Universal Microscope Data,Supported by Open Source Software

Advances in understanding the control mechanisms governing the behavior of cells in adherent mammalian tissue culture models are becoming increasingly dependent on modes of single-cell analysis. Methods which deliver composite data reflecting the mean values of biomarkers from cell populations risk losing subpopulation dynamics that reflect the heterogeneity of the studied biological system. In keeping with this, traditional approaches are being replaced by, or supported with, more sophisticated forms of cellular assay developed to allow assessment by high-content microscopy. These assays potentially generate large numbers of images of fluorescent biomarkers, which enabled by accompanying proprietary software packages, allows for multi-parametric measurements per cell. However, the relatively high capital costs and overspecialization of many of these devices have prevented their accessibility to many investigators.Described here is a universally applicable workflow for the quantification of multiple fluorescent marker intensities from specific subcellular regions of individual cells suitable for use with images from most fluorescent microscopes. Key to this workflow is the implementation of the freely available Cell Profiler software¹ to distinguish individual cells in these images, segment them into defined subcellular regions and deliver fluorescence marker intensity values specific to these regions. The extraction of individual cell intensity values from image data is the central purpose of this workflow and will be illustrated with the analysis of control data from a siRNA screen for G1 checkpoint regulators in adherent human cells. However, the workflow presented here can be applied to analysis of data from other means of cell perturbation (e.g., compound screens) and other forms of fluorescence based cellular markers and thus should be useful for a wide range of laboratories.     

Quantitative Analysis of Protein Expression to Study Lineage Specification in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos

This protocol presents a method to perform quantitative, single-cell in situ analyses of protein expression to study lineage specificationin mouse preimplantation embryos. The procedures necessary for embryo collection, immunofluorescence, imaging on a confocal microscope, and image segmentation and analysis are described. This method allows quantitation of the expression of multiple nuclear markers and the spatial (XYZ) coordinates of all cells in the embryo. It takes advantage of MINS, an image segmentation software tool specifically developed for the analysis of confocal images of preimplantation embryos and embryonic stem cell (ESC) colonies. MINS carries out unsupervised nuclear segmentation across the X, Y and Z dimensions, and produces information on cell position in three-dimensional space, as well as nuclear fluorescence levels for all channels with minimal user input. While this protocol has been optimized for the analysis of images of preimplantation stage mouse embryos, it can easily be adapted to the analysis of any other samples exhibiting a good signal-to-noise ratio and where high nuclear density poses a hurdle to image segmentation (e.g., expression analysis of embryonic stem cell (ESC) colonies, differentiating cells in culture, embryos of other species or stages, etc.).     

Synchronization of Caulobacter Crescentus for Investigation of the Bacterial Cell Cycle

The cell cycle is important for growth, genome replication, and development in all cells. In bacteria, studies of the cell cycle have focused largely on unsynchronized cells making it difficult to order the temporal events required for cell cycle progression, genome replication, and division. Caulobacter crescentus provides an excellent model system for the bacterial cell cycle whereby cells can be rapidly synchronized in a G0 state by density centrifugation. Cell cycle synchronization experiments have been used to establish the molecular events governing chromosome replication and segregation, to map a genetic regulatory network controlling cell cycle progression, and to identify the establishment of polar signaling complexes required for asymmetric cell division. Here we provide a detailed protocol for the rapid synchronization of Caulobacter NA1000 cells. Synchronization can be performed in a large-scale format for gene expression profiling and western blot assays, as well as a small-scale format for microscopy or FACS assays. The rapid synchronizability and high cell yields of Caulobacter make this organism a powerful model system for studies of the bacterial cell cycle.     

An Efficient Method for Quantitative,Single-cell Analysis of Chromatin Modification and Nuclear Architecture in Whole-mount Ovules in Arabidopsis

In flowering plants, the somatic-to-reproductive cell fate transition is marked by the specification of spore mother cells (SMCs) in floral organs of the adult plant. The female SMC (megaspore mother cell, MMC) differentiates in the ovule primordium and undergoes meiosis. The selected haploid megaspore then undergoes mitosis to form the multicellular female gametophyte, which will give rise to the gametes, the egg cell and central cell, together with accessory cells. The limited accessibility of the MMC, meiocyte and female gametophyte inside the ovule is technically challenging for cytological and cytogenetic analyses at single cell level. Particularly, direct or indirect immunodetection of cellular or nuclear epitopes is impaired by poor penetration of the reagents inside the plant cell and single-cell imaging is demised by the lack of optical clarity in whole-mount tissues.Thus, we developed an efficient method to analyze the nuclear organization and chromatin modification at high resolution of single cell in whole-mount embedded Arabidopsis ovules. It is based on dissection and embedding of fixed ovules in a thin layer of acrylamide gel on a microscopic slide. The embedded ovules are subjected to chemical and enzymatic treatments aiming at improving tissue clarity and permeability to the immunostaining reagents. Those treatments preserve cellular and chromatin organization, DNA and protein epitopes. The samples can be used for different downstream cytological analyses, including chromatin immunostaining, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and DNA staining for heterochromatin analysis. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) imaging, with high resolution, followed by 3D reconstruction allows for quantitative measurements at single-cell resolution.